Timely post, too, as I’m helping teach a music camp this week to 50 kids ages 5 to 16, ending in a performance Friday evening. I’m agonizing over how to convey the concept of “performance” to them, especially since their life and music experience varies so dramatically. It’s a challenge to explain how important it is to connect with the audience. For those who are on the shy side it must be agonizing and I wish I knew how to ease their anxiety, but performing is one of those things that has to be done over and over before you realize the world won’t come to an end if you make a mistake.

Self-deprecation is the surest form of protection because you’re beating your detractors to the punch. It’s a hard habit to get out of, I know! But still, I think some people in the audience actually warm to that because it makes you seem more human, and it’s like you’re letting them in on your little secret. Gah — I don’t know, it’s all so confusing!!

I had to take time out from typing to run to the window and listen to the Amish man go by in the night, singing a slow, haunting song in full voice with nary a care of who might be listening. If I could just embrace that…

Rock on, Princess.

I think that explaining how a song was written is, if it’s brief, allowable. But a lot of this kind of patter–the “…what I really mean here is….” has grown out of VH-1’s “Behind The Music”–and what’s been lost in the wash is that, at least early on, those stories were being told about songs we’d all known for years. We’d already had a chance to react intellectually and emotionally, to form our own thoughts and feelings.

Once you tell and audience what a song means to you, they can never hear that song again without that awareness, that information. Whatever you touched (or might have touched) in *them* with the song is forever lost to you. There are so many songs I just don’t ever want to know what the artist meant–because I already know what they mean to me. And yes, sometimes, I do want to know what they were thinking.

Can you hear Rob’s song, “Paper Planes” without thinking about his father’s admonitions and the diploma that never was? I didn’t know the story the first time I heard the song, and I thought it was a marriage license. (Go figger! )

Rob’s always been exceedingly generous in NOT telling me what his songs meant to him. Rather, he’s let me tell him what I hear. It’s delighted him that I’ve heard changes in verb tenses and the occasional phrase that turns a song (and my heart) inside out.

He’s done his job–he’s written and performed the song. I’ve done my job–I’ve listened, and absorbed, and interpreted it.

I could do several (many!) pages on what your songs mean *to me.* I think you’re faffin’ brilliant (have I mentioned that lately?) and I have no idea if what I got is what you meant me to get…but I must tell ya–what I got was worth the world to me.

As for your stage persona? Advice worth every penny you paid for it: just be you. The you around the table, the you I go shopping with, the you walking down 23rd St, the you at the Comfort–funny, warm, serious, silly. The you of one-liners I shall not repeat here. You never apologize for nail lacquer or sweaters–why worry about a chord or a garble? Raindrops in a river…here for a half a heartbeat and gone.

Just go on…we’ll come with you.

As far as how much you talk about your songs,..just go from your gut. If it seems like it’s good for you AND your audience, you should figure that out soon enough. Being cryptic for the sake of the art is iffy, if not just silly. Just do what feels right and feels like it works. Bridging that gap between what entertains you and what entertains them.

And in regard to calling attention to mistakes: I’ve seen both Joe Jackson and Tony Levin flub notes live. Tony gave a sly smile, and the ones in the audience that were truly paying attention “got it,” and with Joe, he let out sort of a Pee Wee Herman laugh and went on. Both were endearing, and made us connect with them even more, because although they are both musical geniuses, they are in fact, still human. They certainly didn’t apologize about anything. Shy of falling off the stage, most people don’t notice mistakes anyway. But those guys are both known for being perfectionists, and they probably felt that their “fans” would notice that stuff. If those guys didn’t feel the need to apologize, after all the experience they have, you certainly don’t need to do it.

This also opens up a new can of worms about how being known for musical prowess as opposed to sincere connection puts added pressure on the artist. But I’ll spare you that one. ; )

There’s nothing wrong with a story before an important song; just don’t give away too much before you play it. Think of your stories as theatrical trailers; you don’t give away the ending (the butler did it!) but rather, tease the audience and make them want to listen. If they get something different then what you had intended, that’s fine.

As for confidence, you’ll be fine. Remember that people came out and paid to see you perform; they’re confident that you’ll be great, now you need to be as well.